Great Action-Adventure
The game takes place entirely on an island, home of the Sands of Time. Through the use of time portals you travel between the past and present, altering aspects in one time to unlock things in the other. The concept is great, and is used really well in the plot line. It also leads to the one detraction that I have with the game, and that is repetition. Due to the whole time travel thing you will often times be in the same room at least twice, and while often you are navigating to a different portion of it, there is only so many "swing from bar, catch rope, walk on plank, push lever" combinations that you can come up with, and in the later half of the game it felt like just going through the motions to advance the story.
The combat mechanics are a lot of fun, with nice finishing moves that are in slow-motion and all their graphic bloddy detail. The boss fights are also quite challenging, figuring out when to time attacks is a puzzle in itself. And the chase scenes really get your heart pounding and with their precise timing, plan on running through a few of them multiple times to figure them out.
This is my first action-adventure and I found it to be a great experience. With solid gameplay and controls, nice graphics and perfect soundtrack, Prince of Persia is a solid mix of fun, puzzle solving, and heart pounding action.